Correct me if I'm wrong, but you were complaining about people who choose to do QDM. Do you think that's easy for those that do? I don't care how many years you've hunted deer, I don't care if you don't use trail cameras or not. The bottom line is you're complaining about how other people hunt, and that way is the wrong way. I bet you your life savings, that deer you shot in Northern Illinois someone gave a pass at some point and time.

So, if you want to start poking and make this an issue of who's a better hunter and who's not... You're old, you have more time to spend in the woods and probably hunt more than the average hunter. You talk about shooting a forkhorn, I find it hard to believe that you shot that buck after not being close enough to another deer that doesn't have a clue, aka a spike or a fork horn if you're as high on that podium as you make yourself out to be. It was shot in winter for gosh sakes. You had all year to shoot a buck, and you waited until snow was on the ground and were hunting over the only available food source around? Give me a break.

Most deer hunting shows are staged, but it really takes talent, patience and persistance to take a true trophy...and one around...

Where do most big bucks (or all deer for that matter) go that time of year when they are beat down? To food, so don't claim that you're some hero. Anyone can walk up to a deer that time of year if they watch the wind and have the food around. Look at most deer hunting shows.

I hunt on 21 acres, deer are very aware of their surroundings, and people around me shoot whatever they see. I pass up on deer hoping that a quarter of them make it through the year, which is a high estimate. The bucks I see have been shot an numerous times...I've seen deer with arrows stuck in their antlers. I've never once hunted over a farm field (corn/soybeans) or any food source for deer...complain all you want about how your hunting is superior to everyone else, but the bottom line is we're both out there doing what we enjoy.

I grew up hunting in Marinette County where our hunting party was its brown its down. That got boring shooting every deer I saw and tagging them. So we agree to disagree on a few things here, so be it, I'm not telling you your way of hunting is wrong...I'm defending myself and those who hunt like me. If you're so old and stubborn like the people I hunted with, that's your choice. My choice is my choice...welcome to America. Stop trying to make a point that your way of hunting is so much more heroic than another hunter. If your challenge is shooting the first thing you see, congrats, mine is not that way.

"Hunt Hard,

Kill Swiftly,

Waste Nothing,

Offer No Apologies....."

That's what I do, and I'm sure that's how all QDM people are...so accept other hunters as they are, before your "superior" kind drowns out most hunters.

Gafrage: I don't give a rat's patoot what you think about me or your condesending attitude. I only mentioned who I am and some of what I've done because of YOUR comments.

I stated my opinion about what I think of a lot of QDM/TDM winds up being and you didn't like it. Boo-freaking-hoo. I never said that you SHOULDN'T be a deer farmer if that's what you want to be. Go for it. I prefer to hunt deer and not farm them, or worse yet start thinking that they're "MY" deer and that I have the right to tell other people what they should or should not do, or unbelievably that they should THANK me for what I do!

But I do have to offer you some thank yous for you and others who've become die hard QDM/TDM people as long as your looking for strokes....

THANK YOU.......for making the cost of what was once considered "scrub land" in most farm areas now worth as much or more than the crop land.

THANK YOU....for helping raise farm taxes

THANK YOU....for making the cost of hunting prohibitive for many folks with high land prices, lease rates and hunting fees. In most of Illinois now unless you are wealthy or have close friends or family who own land you're SOL as far as deer hunting goes on private land. And I even know of some people who DO have family that owns land but it got leased out from under them by folks want to be deer farmers.

Look, I don't know you from Adam. But I do know quite a few people who ARE antler nazi's and preach and pontificate to everyone else how they should hunt and what they should shoot. And I'll tell you this...any positives that may come because of their actions is MORE than offset by the negative crap that I just mentioned.

Obviously if you look back at the posts, you do have an issue with QDM, or as you call it "deer farmers"...I was defending a breed that makes it fun for young hunters and new hunters a like.

THANK YOU for being the meat hunter, it helps me feel more satisfied with shooting a mature buck when you shoot anything that walks.

THANK YOU for helping me realize that hunting scrub land without any farm land and shooting a mature buck I patterned and hunted for 3+ years was a huge success.

THANK YOU for shooting every deer you see (including that "typical B&C" that isn't a typical B&C 171" , maybe a non-typical 171" gross) so I can keep interested in the next buck that walks my way.

THANK YOU for classifiying me as someone who is telling people what to shoot...because that's not what I do...

THANK YOU for your belief in the Bears and Cubs and idiot politicians running your state, because in WI, there is PLENTY of public land where you don't have to own and still have a successful hunt, including counties which I didn't mention in my 1st post...pretty much the whole state

THANK YOU for being willing to post that 1.5 you shoot this fall, I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Do what you want, I didn't have a problem with you, until you told everyone else what to shoot. I didn't tell you what to shoot.

I'd love to see picture of a smile on your crabby, hate the world, face with a fork horn in the past 20 years. Post it, let's see it. Can you match the smile with your "B&C" buck?

Dig deep, let's see all the pictures of your face with any of those bucks...(or does)...you're not fooling anyone here.

These types of conversations always get edgy.Folks complain about letting em walk, shoot because we can, crossbow/primitive bow/compund bow/recurve.............its just on and onOur efforts and differences should be utilized against the EDF's and the Wildlife agencies taking away public lands, placing uneeded restricitions on hunters and fisherman..............but we should try not to go at each other. Divided we are weak.

"Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see farther."

Of course they can get edgy. I never once told Woodsie his way was wrong, what I was saying, from post #1 was embrace the other style, whether you get a buck or doe or whatever, it doesn't matter. Have fun. We're all out there doing what we want, regardless of how we do it. Shoot a booner, shoot a fork, go have fun, but don't tell someone else how to hunt and what trips their trigger.

I practice QDM my style on my land. What I mean by that, is I plant food plots, use trail cameras, set out bait piles, and study the deer, then kill the ones I don't want left in the herd. If it's a young buck with a spike on one side and a fork on the other, he's never going to develop a decent rack, and needs to be taken out of the gene pool. If it's an old doe who doesn't have a fawn and is eating up the protein from the other deer, she's going into the freezer. Trail cameras help me determine which of those older does are no longer producing off spring, and which ones may have lost a fawn to predators, the highway, or the poachers who sneak onto my property of the property next to mine.

My problem is with any hunter who decides to call out another hunter over their method of hunting. Even if their method is hunting a high fence operation!. Hunters are our own worst enemies, when we bicker and condemn another individual's choices, whether it's choice of weapon, or style of hunting. Those who want to hunt only trophy deer, and don't depend on the meat have the right to hunt that way; but those of us who hunt to fill the freezer and feed our families and friends, also have the same right.

BTW, any one who claims that they don't hunt with some type of bait or attractant is either naive, misunderstands the definitions, or is a liar. Just because you don't hunt over a corn pile, food plot, or grain field, doesn't exempt you from hunting over some form of bait. It might be during the rut when does in heat are the bait, hunting over natural browse or in a hardwood bottom filled with acorns, hunting a water source, of setting up on a trail that leads to and from bedding and food sources.......it's all a form of bait, whether people admit it or not. Even spot and stalk hunters are taking advantage of some of the same forms when they sit on a hilltop and use their high powered spotting scopes to seek out the animals they want to stalk are taking advantage of terrain features, and the animals natural tendencies in order to accomplish their goal.

End results are what count.........not style or weapon used. Arguments, and disagreements between difference of opinions only gives support to those who would gladly deny all of us he right to hunt, regardless of style. So, can't we all just support each other, and if my way isn't your way, then be happy that we both can enjoy our way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"But is that what it's all about for you? Being able to shoot whatever deer you want whenever you want because you made yourself a deer farm? Really? I feel sorry for you my friend, I really do. Your missing the whole point of the hunt.....but then again, you've shown that you aren't there for the hunt, in fact the hunt isn't even part of it anymore."

"But I do know quite a few people who ARE antler nazi's and preach and pontificate to everyone else how they should hunt and what they should shoot."

"I don't give a rat's patoot what you think about me or your condesending attitude."

Irony or hypocrisy?

Respect - don't take it, unless you are willing to give it.Responsibility - don't give it, unless you are willing to take it.